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This is a New Zealand Defence Force public release of RNZAF file AIR 39/3/3, "Flying Saucers," which covers 1952 to 1955 and was declassified in September 2010 under the Official Information Act. It collects sighting reports from the public and military personnel, press clippings, and a table of 1952 sightings. It also holds Carter Observatory opinions attributing some reports to meteors. A large part covers the inquiry into lights seen from National Airways Corporation Flight 108 on 31 October 1955, which the RNZAF could not fully explain as Venus.
“Christchurch”32 pages
# OTE ANOTHER LANDING IN THE SECOND MARIGNANE INCIDENT (9.0 p.m. Jan 4th 1954) FRANCE Swept by an icy wind under an astonishingly clear sky the Airport of Marigane was about the last place to be the victim of an hallucination. Well after dark, on this moonless night, fireman Chesneau was on guard at the big boussiron hangar. The fireman was standing at the entrance, all the more attentive to his duties because the Boussiron hangar shelters a new transport 'plane', the prototype "Hurel-Dubois", with very long wings. With his back to the concrete walls Chesneau was watching the multi-coloured lights of the runway. Suddenly he observed, coming from the south, a machine"rounded and luminous"- which descended at moderate speed towards the runway. The machine was observed to touch the ground and bounce slightly several times. With professional conscientiousness, the fireman alerted the control tower, but as he was phoning from inside, the machine apparently disappeared. The officer on duty went round the runways with lights full on, but could not find any trace of the machine. Naturally, as in the case of the Customs Officer Gachignard( who on the 27th October 1952 reported the landing of a cigar-shaped object on the runway which took off rapidly as he advanced to wards it) the firemans etory was put down as another case of hallusination. Next morning on examining the area closely, they found debris and some metallic rods at the spot where the machine had landed. The story would of gained no credence at Marseille but for the evasive attitude of the military authorities. This evasiveness added support to the idea that something very much out of the ordinary had indeed occured. Journalists, when they are systematically put off, have an invincible tendency to believe something is being hidden, and if something is hidden then that something exists. Some of them met insurmountable difficulties during enquiries, so were lead to believe that the Air Ministry was investigating on its own accord in the greatest secrecy. More and more Marseille people are asking: 'Why this mystery? ; Why this silence? . Is it for fear of ridicule? . Some say that the iron rods picked up are the simple clappers from bells, which are attached to the necks of sheep. These rods were found were found amongst a score of pieces of metallic debris, were some 15 cm long, curved under at one end in a ball, a little larger than a marble. Some traces of yellow metal contrasting with the blackish-grey of the 'Marble ended rods', suggested that the later had been brazed onto the rods. The day after Chesneaus sighting two respected inhabitants of Marseille, claimed that whilst motoring to Marseille from Arles, they had been overtaken by a round and brilliant object, which cut across the road and headed out to desert country. These two Marseille worthies are now confirmed believers in flying saucers. ( extract Flying Saucer News, England) SEND ALL MENTION OF FLYING SAUCERS IN YOUR LOCAL PRESS TO C.S.I.
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